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Ancestry.ca Launches Canadian Border Crossings Collection From 1895 to 1956

Superman Creator, Joseph Shuster, Among More Than 4 Million Names, 1
Million Images and 5,000 Photographs of Canadian Immigration Records
PROVO, Utah, April 4 /CNW/ -- Ancestry.ca, the largest Canadian family
history website, today announced the addition of the first and only online
collection of more than 4 million names of individuals who crossed the
U.S.-Canadian border between 1895 and 1956. These historical records are the
latest addition to Ancestry.ca, which also hosts the fully indexed 1851, 1901,
1906 and 1911 Censuses of Canada and the recently added French-Canadian Drouin
Records Collection.
An often-overlooked but major immigration channel, the U.S.-Canadian
border typically offered easier entrance to the United States and Canada than
significant sea ports of entry. This new collection includes immigrants who
first sailed to or settled in Canada before continuing to the United States as
well as U.S. and Canadian citizens crossing the border.
"This collection contains a wealth of information for those researching
their Canadian ancestors who may have arrived in Canada by crossing the U.S.
border or who left Canada and crossed over to the United States," said Megan
Smolenyak, Chief Family Historian for Ancestry.ca. "Similar to a ship's
manifest, these records detail information such as the date of birth, names of
family members, previous residence information and in some cases the name of
the border crossing location. Tracing my roots, I was able to locate my
husband's ancestors including his grandmother who came to the U.S. the same
day she married her naturalized American husband."
Ancestry.ca transcribed the names in the collection from more than 1
million documents, some containing passport-type photos of immigrants. The
records were culled from more than 100 land-ports of entry, from Washington to
Maine. Among the busiest ports of entry on both sides of the border were
Niagara Falls, Buffalo, Detroit, Montreal, Vancouver and Halifax.
The border crossing collection also showcases a number of nationalities
crossing the U.S.-Canadian border. Russians, Italians and Chinese were among
the most common nationalities of people crossing the Canadian border to settle
in the United States.
Among notable border crossers is Superman creator, Joseph Shuster. Born
in Toronto, Shuster moved to the United States as a child, eventually becoming
a U.S. citizen. His 1941 return to Canada, crossing at Buffalo, NY, is
documented in the Ancestry.ca collection.
About Ancestry.ca
Ancestry.ca is the leading online site for Canadian family history
records, with the first and only online collection of vital records for
Ontario and the only fully indexed 1851, 1901, 1906 and 1911 Censuses of
Canada. Ancestry.ca is part of The Generations Network, Inc, a leading network
of family-focused interactive properties, including Ancestry.com,
Ancestry.co.uk, Ancestry.com.au, Ancestry.de, MyFamily.com, Rootsweb.com,
Genealogy.com, and Family Tree Maker. The Generations Network also publishes
Family Tree Maker(R) (No. 1 selling family tree software), Ancestry Magazine,
over 50 book titles and numerous databases on CD-ROM. For more information on
Ancestry.ca, visit http://www.ancestry.ca.